Soulsong #492 – Can Suffering Be Good for Me?
Is there value in suffering?
Religions have taught that there is indeed value in suffering physical, mental, or emotional pain. Through pain, they say, (1) we grow in our dependence on a higher power, (2) we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us, (3) we gain empathy for others who suffer, (4) we learn to sacrifice our desires for a nobler and higher cause.
To the extent that such teachings help people find meaning in the harsh realities they have attracted, the teachings offer some value. Trouble is, they’re untrue.
(1) There is no higher power who yearns for my greater dependence. There is, however, a higher power on which I’m intrinsically dependent and from which I’m intrinsically independent. It is the non-physical energy from which I emerged into physical expression; it will ever be part of me and it will offer me guidance via my emotions until I leave physical expression this go-around.
(2) My own world does revolve around me – it could be no other way. I summon every person and event in my experience via my vibration – that is, my habits of thought. No one else is creating in my experience – I have no one to blame, no one to thank but myself.
(3) Empathy seems like a virtue – focus on others’ pain and “feel for them.” Unfortunately, anything I focus on will, over time, grow in my experience due to Law of Attraction that decrees, “That which is like unto itself is drawn.” When I focus on people’s pain, I’m actually asking for some of it for myself, and I’m not helping them, either. The best thing I can do for others is to envision them happy and whole.
(4) Espousing causes that are decreed as higher and nobler than my own well-being? There could not be war or terrorism without such mentality.
I did not come into human expression to suffer – I came to notice things I want and things I don’t want, form desires for things I do want, focus on the desires long enough to see them manifest, and then go on to the next ones. Through this process, the Universe continually expands.
The only value in suffering is to show, by its very presence, that I’m off-track.
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Copyright 2007, Karen Williams
